Clinkle: Revolutionizing the Mobile Payment Industry

As mobile payment becomes the favored mode of transaction among consumers, companies are now jumping on this trend to find more ways to improve their virtual services. One of the leading innovations in this industry is the Clinkle. This soon to be released app promises a faster mode of payment for the tech-savvy consumers. Let’s take a look at how this new platform revolutionizes the mobile point of sales (MPOS) system.

The current system

These days, the most common technology used in mobile payment systems is through the Radio Frequency and the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Near Field Communication (NFC) as well as its chip and pin. In RFID, it replaces the magnetic stripe found on credit cards with a chip that lets you complete monetary transactions by just tapping it in a special radio frequency reader. Similarly, NFC chip is inserted inside smartphones that allows a two-way communication system between your device and the card reader. You can buy goods and services by using your smartphones and at the same time, you can also receive information from passive NFC tags on posters and in shops so you can get addresses or discount vouchers. The chip and pin, on the other hand, is a system that requires you to use both credit card and smartphone for paying. Services like O2’s payment on the go and Visa’s PINpad are quite popular among European consumers because of its two-factor authentication process. Unlike the RFID and the NFC which only uses your cards and smartphones, this process requires you to enter a separate pin in order to purchase something. In addition, these passwords won’t be stored in the card reader or even the shop owner’s mobile device which ensures that it can’t be used by others.

The Clinkle Revolution

Clinkle is a startup project by Lucas Duplan which promises consumers new methods of paying bills without using cash and credit card. According to an article from Gigaom, this answers the increasing problem of bulky hardwares attached to phones and tablets. This innovation uses an app to app method as well as an ultrasound exchange called Aerolink to complete a transaction, according to Mark Knoll’s Trendblog article. “With ultrasounds, smartphones could communicate with the mics of merchants’ smartphones, tablets and computers (should they use one of these devices). So there wouldn’t be a need for additional hardware,” Knoll wrote.

Trust from big investors

Big companies and individuals have shown their support for this innovative solution. These includes Andreessen Horowitz and Accel Partners, as well as individuals like PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Accel Partners partner Jim Breyer, VMWare co-founder Diane Greene, Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, and former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta. They have seen so much potential in this app that they’ve raised its funding up to $25 million.

For now, developers of Clinkle is still tight-lipped regarding information the application or how it works. But from the looks of it, we’ll be having a more mobile reliant shopping experience in the coming years.

What kind of mobile payment do you usually use? Share us your stories in the comments section.